Before ministers of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), which Argentina chairs pro tempore, the president Alberto Fernández questioned the “passivity” of the countries of the South “who only look” at the actions decided in the North. Faced with the war in Ukraine, the head of state asked more countries to raise his voice to say “enough” to a conflict that “is bringing misery” to the rest of the world.
When participating, together with the Minister of Education, Jaime Perzyck, and the Argentine ambassador to UNESCO, Marcela Losardo, in the San Martín Palace of the III Regional Meeting of Ministers of Education of CELAC, Fernández recalled that in their recent meeting in Berlin with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz marked him “that that war that you see in the north is bringing misery to the south”. In that sense, he expressed: “How much longer are we going to be accomplices? I will not shut up anymore, what I say here I say in the north, and it would be wonderful if the countries that today suffer from this reality join my voice.”
After analyzing the social consequences of the pandemic, the President emphasized the economic damage that the war in Europe causes in the countries of the South. “In the north wars break out and in the south we suffer“, he indicated and warned about “the rise in food that is dangerously affecting”. ” she said, and then continued: “I wonder if we should not unite voices to tell the north ‘stop’”.
In his speech, the Argentine president also criticized the economic embargoes imposed by the United States on Cuba and Venezuela. In this regard, he pointed out that there is “a country that has been economically blocked for six decades and survives as best it can” and another that was “blockaded in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.” “We should be ashamed that this happens in our continent”Fernandez affirmed, hours before receiving Christopher Dodd, special adviser to the United States Government for the IX Summit of the Americas, at a time when the President decides whether to participate in the meeting convened from June 6 to 10 in Los Angeles.
Washington has already announced that it will not invite the governments of Venezuela and Nicaragua to this multilateral meeting — Cuba has not yet been defined — a decision that pushed Mexican President Andrés López Obrador and other leaders to reject participation in that conclave. Yesterday, Gabriela Cerruti reiterated that Argentina has been proposing the need for an “all inclusive” summit and, as it turned out, the Casa Rosada will decide the attendance during the next week.
Education
Regarding the educational theme that motivated the forum held at the Foreign Ministry, Fernández highlighted the impact of a pandemic that “is not over yet.” “It is a time unfortunately unique, marked by pain, sorrow, by death. The only thing we could do was isolate ourselves from the others, because we had no way to deal with that threat. In educational terms it meant profound damage”, he stated.
Likewise, he considered that “socialization” was one of the points that suffered the most during the period: “Boys and girls go to class to learn to live in society, they get to know the first rules and behaviors of a society.” “One does not steal because he knows that the criminal code says so, he has learned it in the family, in the class, in the club. You know that there are rewards and punishments before playing football than because you know the rules of your country. The pandemic deprived us of that socialization process,” he added.
While, insisted again on the need for states to be guarantors of education and went further by pointing to this matter as a “guiding cause” for all Latin American governments. Thus he called for “developing education, science and technology, to have societies that are capable of integrating into a globalized world that competes for knowledge.”
For his part, when taking the floor, Minister Perczyk said: “Sustaining and repairing the damage caused by the pandemic in our country is a boost for Latin America” in a quest to “build and develop a path for the entire region in unity.
Also participating in the meeting were the Minister of Education of Colombia, María Victoria Angulo González; and the UNESCO Deputy Director General for Education, Stefanía Giannini.
In addition, a message was broadcast from the President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, Sahle-Work Zewde, who stressed that the international crisis caused by the pandemic “redefined the links between everyone and with the world”, while “education ” confirmed that it is “the surest path to justice and sustainability”.
The III Regional Meeting of Ministers of Education of Latin America and the Caribbean It is co-organized by the UNESCO Regional Office for Education, and its objective is to guarantee the monitoring and achievement of the fourth objective of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, focused on ensuring “inclusive, equitable and quality education”, and “promote learning opportunities throughout life and for all people”.
As reported, during the meeting, a proposal to strengthen the regional educational coordination mechanism will be considered, incorporated into the Roadmap for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 4-Education Agenda 2030 for the period 2022-2025.
The meeting, which will last until Friday, also fulfills the commitments made by the highest educational authorities in the region during the previous Meeting of Ministers and Ministers, which took place in Cochabamba, Bolivia, in 2018.